How Post Offices Are Targeting Abortion Pills

10.18.24

Click to skip ahead: In Criminalizing Care, the US Postal Service is already investigating abortion medication. Anti-Abortion Strategy looks deeper at the attacks on mifepristone. In the States, news from Tennessee, Pennsylvania and more. Ballot Measure Updates looks at Florida, Montana, New York, Missouri and anti-abortion tactics more broadly.

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Criminalizing Care

If you haven’t read this investigation at The Intercept about drug-sniffing dogs ‘alerting’ to abortion medication and the way the USPS can be weaponized against reproductive rights activists, you should remedy that right now.

Focusing specifically on an investigation in Jackson, Mississippi, reporter Debbie Nathan provides a stark look at how local officials work with federal investigators to go after abortion pills—and how a Trump presidency could make mailing abortion medication a felony. I’ll give you the short version, but please, go read this piece.

Nathan looks at an incident where a police dog was brought to a Jackson post office after an employee there said they saw someone put pills into a pink envelope. The dog, documents said, alerted when presented with one of the envelopes. That in turn became evidence to get a warrant to open the package, which contained abortion medication.

But here’s the thing: dogs aren’t trained to alert to abortion medication, which is legal—just drugs like heroin, cocaine, etc. So what’s much more likely is that the police officer did something call “cueing” their dog, giving off subtle body language cues that they wanted the dog to alert:

“Handlers wishing to develop probable cause to do intrusive searches for narcotics can coax their dogs into drug-alerting behavior. To get a reward, the dog will alert, even if nothing illegal is present.”

Apparently this happens often enough that some agencies require K-9 handlers to wear body cameras to make sure they’re not cueing their dogs. And then there’s this:

“The Jackson investigation apparently also employed what’s called a mail cover: a little-known Postal Service method for collecting data about people suspected of committing crimes. Using an enormous database of images of the outside of envelopes and packages, postal inspectors can digitally compare names, addresses, and other information on one item to others. And the findings can be freely shared with almost any law enforcement agency that requests them.”

In other words, they can use a dog to come up with an excuse for why they need to get into a package, and then collect all sorts of information in order to build a case against the person who sent the package.

Nathan reports that dozens of envelopes with abortion pills were seized in Jackson, and officials declined to say whether a case is still open. While no one has been indicted yet, we do know that whoever was waiting for those pills didn’t get them. So at the very least, even if no one is arrested it’s a way for officials to stop women from getting the care they need.

Now, imagine we’re under a Trump presidency. The Comstock Act is being enforced, the USPS leadership is appointed by the president, and federal postal officers and investigators are working with law enforcement, who’ve been emboldened to go after abortion rights activists as “drug traffickers.” And as Nathan points out, if Comstock is revived dog handlers wouldn’t need to “cue” in order to start an investigation; the dogs would be trained to smell the pills once the medication was criminalized.

In other words, a total nightmare. Again, read the whole piece; I’ll be writing more about privacy and criminalization in the coming weeks before the election, but if this doesn’t scare the shit out of you I don’t know what will.

Anti-Abortion Strategy

Let’s keep talking about attacks on abortion medication, because it is really is enemy number one for the anti-abortion movement right now.

These pills don’t just mean that women can avoid the real life harassment at clinics that antis are so eager to dole out, but that they can end their pregnancies privately and at home. And in a post-Roe America, the mailing of abortion medication has been a saving grace for patients in states with bans. Remember, tele-health now accounts for nearly 1 in 5 abortions.

That’s why Republican Attorneys General are going after mifepristone in the lawsuit I told you about earlier this week, and why I’m so worried about things like USPS investigations. Today, Sarah Zhang at The Atlantic looks at some of the different ways that antis are coming up with to target abortion medication—like going after shield state providers.

Zhang also points out that anti-abortion groups are getting creative: Texas Right to Life wants to go after the pro-choice groups putting up billboards about abortion medication for “aiding and abetting,” and has lobbied for legislation that would “create liability for internet-service providers or credit-card-processing companies involved in abortion-pill transactions.” (Abortion, Every Day has reported on this and other efforts in Texas—like making pro-choice websites illegal, whether they provide abortion medication itself or just information about the pills.)

Then there’s the move to make abortion medication a controlled substance, claims that the pills are used by domestic abusers and sex traffickers, and efforts to drive up fake ‘complication’ rates so they can like about the medications’ (proven!) safety.

All of which is to say: This war on abortion medication is only getting started, there are a ton of different facets to it, and we need to be on top of every single one. If you missed my explainer on the latest anti-abortion lawsuit against mifepristone, read it below:

The GOP's Attack on Abortion Pills is Here

In the States

We have some rare good news out of Tennessee: A three-judge panel ruled that the state medical board can’t discipline or revoke the licenses of doctors who provide life-saving abortions. (Unfortunately, the panel lacked the authority to block the prosecution of doctors.)

This is a suit that was filed last year by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of women and doctors impacted by the state’s ban. The Center pointed out that the ban’s ‘exceptions’ were deliberately vague, making doctors afraid to provide care—which, of course, endangers women. The judges wrote that the patient plaintiffs showed "they will suffer immediate and irreparable harm pending a final judgment in this case.”

The judges were also able to do one more important thing—expand the specifically-named conditions that qualify as “medical necessity exceptions” under Tennessee’s ban. Until now, only ectopic and molar pregnancies were listed by name; other than that, doctors had to use “reasonable medical judgement” in order to “prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”

The judges ruled that the state’s exception has to include:

• Previable preterm premature rupture of membranes (“PPROM”)

• Inevitable abortion, defined as dilation of the cervix prior to viability of the pregnancy, either by preterm labor or cervical insufficiency 

• Fatal fetal diagnoses that lead to maternal health conditions, such as severe preeclampsia and mirror syndrome associated with fetal hydrops 

• Fatal fetal diagnoses leading to an infection that will result in uterine rupture or potential loss of fertility

I hate that this is necessary—that doctors have to be given the explicit okay to save women’s lives. Naturally, Tennessee’s Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti claimed that the ruling didn’t do anything new that and the state was always going to allow doctors to save women’s lives. But that’s just not true.

You may remember—because Abortion, Every Day was tracking this closely for months—that when Roe was first overturned, Tennessee had no exception for women’s lives. Instead, doctors had to break the law in order to provide life-saving abortions and then defend that decision after the fact.

When Republicans saw that voter outrage was going to be an issue, they decided to work on an exception for women’s lives. But, incredibly, anti-abortion groups like Tennessee Right to Life and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America lobbied them not to. That’s right—they didn’t want them passing an exception for women’s lives.

As the state GOP moved ahead with drafting an exception anyway, these groups pressured Republicans to make it as hard on doctors as possible. For example, originally the language of the exception would allow doctors to use “good faith” medical judgement. Anti-abortion groups made lawmakers change it to “reasonable” medical judgement. Why? Tennessee Right to Life claimed “it would be open season” for doctors “who wanted to perform bad-faith terminations.”

In other words, this was never about protecting women—but punishing them, and the people who care for them.

In more desperate-to-criminalize-news: When asked if he would prosecute abortion patients and providers if Pennsylvania passed an abortion ban, Republican Attorney General candidate Dave Sunday responded, “I will absolutely enforce and defend the abortion laws in Pennsylvania.” He then went on to say that such an abortion ban would never happen so folks shouldn’t even worry about it.

This has become such a ridiculous and annoying refrain fro Republicans in pro-choice states—claiming that abortion rights are safe and that they’ll follow the rule of law and what voters want. Americans can see that abortion rights are in danger everywhere; they’re not looking for equivocations and claims from politicians that they couldn’t pass or enforce a ban even if they wanted to. They’re looking for a moral stance.

Quick hits:

• New Hampshire’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Kelly Ayotte is running from her anti-abortion stance;

• I love that abortion is becoming an issue that even city candidates need to talk about it, like this commission race in Tallahassee, Florida;

• And in a Massachusetts debate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Republican challenger John tried to blame Warren for the end of Roe v. Wade, which is…something.

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Ballot Measure Updates

I told you yesterday about the good news out of Florida—a judge issued a temporary restraining order against Republican leaders who are dismantling democracy in order to keep abortion banned. It’s incredible that the government needs to be forced by a judge to stop violating free speech, but I’ll take whatever wins I can.

Here’s Bloomberg and The Guardian with coverage of that story. The temporary block will last until the end of the month, when the judge will hold a hearing on whether to extend the block. Given his quote, though—”It’s the First Amendment, stupid!”—I’m feeling pretty positive.

I also told you yesterday about the lawsuit against Amendment 4; brought by anti-abortion activists, the suit claims that pro-choice activists participated in voter fraud and that not enough Floridians actually supported the measure to put it on the ballot.

From the campaign director for Amendment 4, Lauren Brenzel:

"These lawsuits should be recognized for what they are—a deeply troubling anti-democratic effort to use the judiciary to keep the people of Florida from being able to make their own choice about whether Amendment 4 should become law.”

The other thing to note, and this is something I’ve said before, is that this particular attack is a way for Republicans to pretend that voters in Florida don’t actually support abortion rights. Which really does make it all the more insidious.

Meanwhile, more than 250 health care providers in Montana have signed a letter in support of the abortion rights amendment there.

“Doctors trust our patients to decide what's right for their unique situations — not politicians. We know that decisions around pregnancy, including abortion, birth control, and miscarriage care, are deeply personal and private, and should be made by patients with advice from their trusted physicians and families. There's no room for political interference in our exam rooms.”

Abortion rights have been protected in Montana since 1999, but Republican leaders in the state have taken every opportunity to roll back access and pass restrictions—so abortion rights activists want that added layer of protection in the state constitution. Republicans there have even tried to stop the amendment from making it to the ballot; this summer, the Secretary of State’s office tried to remove voters’ names from the petition to get the measure in front of voters, claiming that they were “inactive.”

For more on Republicans’ dirty tricks on abortion rights ballot measures, read my July column below:

"The Will of the People," Except on Abortion

Finally, let’s talk about the anti-trans messaging that anti-abortion activists are pushing out in every state with a pro-choice ballot measure. This is something I’ve been raising the alarm on since Michigan was considering their (now-enshrined) abortion rights ballot measure. Essentially, antis know that Americans overwhelmingly support abortion rights, so they’re throwing anything else they can at the wall—most frequently ‘parental rights’ and anti-trans bigotry, which they hope will resonate more with voters than their dying anti-abortion messaging.

ProPublica reports on the increase in anti-trans nonsense around Missouri’s abortion rights amendment this week, noting that Amendment 3 detractors have spent around $1 million in a recent campaign—including radio ads and billboards that read, “STOP Child Gender Surgery.”

New York voters have told me they’ve seen similar ads in opposition to Prop 1, the equal rights amendment that would protect abortion rights. Especially in more moderate and conservative areas of the state, anti-abortion activists have put up signs telling voters to “protect girls’ sports” or to “keep boys out of girls’ locker rooms.”

I’ll be publishing a series (next week, probably) about the different kinds of anti-abortion attacks on ballot measures and what talking points to watch out for, but what strikes me most about this is just how scared Republicans are to talk about their actual anti-abortion beliefs.

As political science professor Matthew Harris told ProPublica, “Abortion rights are broadly popular all across the country, even in red states. If you’re going to lose on the substance of that issue, you sort of have to try to make it about something else.”

Quick hits:

• The ACLU looks at down-ballot races, reminding Americans that it’s not just the presidential election that will impact abortion rights;

• The Associated Press points out that even if ballot measures win in November, it doesn’t mean it’s the end of the fight in those states;

• States Newsroom interviewed some of the leaders behind the abortion rights ballot measures around the country;

• And PBS NewsHour did a short segment on how abortion rights ballot measures in Nevada and Arizona could impact the presidential race: